Andrea Büttner /
Joëlle de la Casinière /
Gareth Moore

26 April – 1 June 2013

Catri­ona Jef­fries is pleased to announce a group exhi­bi­tion that begins with a gar­land by Gareth Moore hung above the door, mark­ing the thresh­old of the gallery from the world. Such a thresh­old forms the con­cep­tu­al basis for the exhi­bi­tion, which asks ques­tions of that which is inside and that which is out­side in rela­tion to cre­ative pro­duc­tion and being in the world.

In response to the invi­ta­tion to show a selec­tion of her ‘tablotins’ – pic­ture poems which com­bine writ­ten text, found mate­ri­als and draw­ings – Joëlle de La Casinière select­ed a group of tablotins to com­mem­o­rate the death of her long-time artis­tic col­lab­o­ra­tor, Michel Bon­nemai­son, who spent many years of his life sail­ing the West Coast in a wood­en Tahi­ti Ketch sail­boat. Hav­ing pro­duced over 400 tablotins between the years of 1971 and 2012, her spe­cif­ic selec­tion for this exhi­bi­tion have been copied and blown-up into large scale posters and togeth­er pro­duce per­haps one small chap­ter in a much larg­er, impos­si­ble book. Through the inclu­sion of these works which unself­con­scious­ly lament a loss, the rit­u­al of an exhi­bi­tion is par­tial­ly repur­posed beyond its cod­i­fied modes of dis­play.

At the cen­tre of Andrea Büttner’s instal­la­tion is a seat­ing arrange­ment of pur­pose­ful­ly util­i­tar­i­an mate­ri­als (spruce planks, plas­tic crates), con­trast­ed with padded back­rests uphol­stered in hand­wo­ven wool tex­tiles. Com­bined with this arrange­ment is a pair of large-scale mono­chromes made with fab­rics typ­i­cal­ly used for the uni­forms of work­ers, stretched to cor­re­spond to the archi­tec­ture of the gallery as well as a pair of her large-scale wood­block prints. These ele­ments pro­vide an inte­grat­ed con­text for her video Lit­tle Sis­ters: Luna Park Ostia (2012) which doc­u­ments the time Büt­tner spent with a sis­ter­hood of nuns in Italy, who man­age a stand in an amuse­ment park. In their con­ver­sa­tions they reflect on the impor­tance of plea­sure, joy and aes­thet­ic expe­ri­ences and their own humil­i­ty as ‘lit­tle sis­ters’.

Gareth Moore’s From: a place near the buried canal (2011–12) con­sists of many signs piled togeth­er, hung, or lean­ing against the wall. Con­struct­ed out of var­i­ous found mate­ri­als that have been hand-paint­ed, some direct, oth­ers cau­tion while a few cel­e­brate – all of the signs orig­i­nate from his much larg­er out­door work of 2011–2012, a place, near the buried canal. Seek­ing to cre­ate a work that func­tioned more like real life than that of an art­work, the place oper­at­ed accord­ing to its own log­ic more akin to a his­tor­i­cal site, a cul­ti­vat­ed gar­den or sacred place, with its own rit­u­als, hours, rules and des­ig­na­tions.

Togeth­er, the exhi­bi­tion seeks to reflect upon a shared inter­est in forms of cre­ativ­i­ty that are expressed in the world out­side of the con­fines of that which is pro­duced accord­ing to exist­ing cri­te­ria of artis­tic pro­duc­tion, his­tor­i­cal or oth­er­wise.

Joëlle de La Casinière (b. 1944, Casablan­ca, Moroc­co) lives and works in Brus­sels. In 1971 she left Europe for South Amer­i­ca where she trav­eled exten­sive­ly while mak­ing films with friends and col­lab­o­ra­tors, while also pro­duc­ing her own works in draw­ing and col­lage. Her first book, Absol­u­ment néces­saire, a unique graph­ic man­u­script pub­lished by Edi­tions de Minu­it in Paris in 1973 was cham­pi­oned by Deleuze and Guat­tari in A Thou­sand Plateaus, as a ‘tru­ly nomadic book’. In 1974 she found­ed the Mont­fau­con Research Cen­tre (www.montfaucon.eu) with Michel Bon­nemai­son and oth­er nomadic friends and artists fond of graph­ic poet­ry and the art of liv­ing. Until 1980 she was based in Mon­tre­al, chiefly work­ing on films and sound­tracks, lat­er in 1983 she returned to France and began pro­duc­ing hun­dreds of pages of graph­ic poet­ry for her ‘tablotins’ (pic­ture poems). With the arrival of the per­son­al com­put­er in the late 1980s, she began work on videos, her Tron­ic Movie Music Poems, ani­mat­ing text and music. While cruis­ing the canals of Europe on a restored Flem­ish barge through­out the 2000s, she con­tin­ued mak­ing her tablotins and hand­writ­ten books. Recent solo exhi­bi­tions include Inter­na­tion­al Project Space, Birm­ing­ham (2011); Bran­den­bur­gis­ch­er Kun­stvere­in (2009), Hei­del­berg­er Kun­stvere­in (2007), and Croy-Nielsen Gallery, Berlin (2006). Recent group exhi­bi­tions include The Bar­ran­quil­la Prin­ci­ple, Cen­tre d’art con­tem­po­rain la Syn­a­gogue de Delme, Delme (2010) and Poli­tiques de la vision, Espace d’art con­tem­po­rain, Gene­va (2008). Her video work Gri­moire Mag­ne­tique was includ­ed in Doc­u­men­ta 8, Kas­sel (1987).

Gareth Moore (b. 1975, Mat­squi, BC) lives and works in Van­cou­ver. He has a forth­com­ing solo project at the Van­cou­ver Art Gallery in June of this year and will take part in a pro­duc­tion res­i­den­cy at the Glas­gow Sculp­ture Stu­dios in 2014. His major out­door instal­la­tion, a place, near the buried canal was com­mis­sioned as part of dOC­U­MEN­TA (13) in 2012. Recent solo exhi­bi­tions include Rocks on a Clock, Some Pho­tos of Ducks, A Col­lec­tion of Masks and a Post to Touch, Lüttgen­mei­jer, Berlin (2009); Select­ed Chap­ters from Uncer­tain Pil­grim­age…, Catri­ona Jef­fries, Van­cou­ver (2009); CCA Wat­tis Insti­tute of Con­tem­po­rary Arts, San Fran­cis­co (2008); Gareth Moore: As a Wild Boar Pass­es Water, Witte de With, Rot­ter­dam (2008). His work has been includ­ed in numer­ous group exhi­bi­tions, includ­ing Sobey Art Award, MOCCA, Toron­to (2012); Mon­tre­al Bien­ni­al (2011); It Is What It Is, Nation­al Gallery of Cana­da, Ottawa (2010); Noth­ing to Declare, The Pow­er Plant, Toron­to (2009); Every Ver­sion Belongs to the Myth, Project Arts Cen­tre, Dublin (2009); Sen­ti­men­tal Jour­ney, Con­tem­po­rary Art Gallery, Van­cou­ver (2009); Nomads, Nation­al Gallery of Cana­da, Ottawa (2009).